Dont go!!!! (Camp Beaumont)

Member Name: tracey

Product:	Camp Beaumont
Date:	26/08/09 (92 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: none

Disadvantages: total waste of money

we collected our daughter 4 days early due to her being extremely unhappy. Her dorm smelled of urine, the food portions were small, and there wasnt enough of each dish to give all of the kids a choice. The staff do not seem to communicate properly and are more than prepared to lie to give parents a false impression. Our daughter and a few other girls were bullied by a group of girls which the staff seemed to be oblivious to and totally uninterested. We phoned the camp 3 hours prior to collection of our daughter to inform them that we would be arriving that evening and gave them the approx time to expect us. We arrived about 10 mins early and when we rang reception from the gate they were surprised that we were there as they had no idea that our daughter was coming home, the earlier shift hadnt informed them! Still, they let us in without asking for any ID, and they had no idea what vehicle we were in and how many people were with us. I believe that we could have walked through the camp totally unchallenged, the oldest member of staff on at night is approx 22 and it is run, at least during the evening and night, by a skeleton staff, there were 3 members of staff on duty on this particular night, being helped by a few group leaders who i would say the average aged 18! The reception was very dirty and smelled of very strong stale B O. There were another couple of kids in reception, 1 of whom was sobbing uncontrollably coz he wanted to go home, the staff refused to contact his parents! I asked the kids that i saw if they were enjoying their stay and they said ' no, not really'. Eventually they brought my daughter to reception and i then asked for her spending money to be returned to her, they then declined saying they would 'send it on!' I refused to leave until they returned her money and did eventually get this back. My daughter had, after the 1st night there,requested a room change due to the smell, but was totally ignored. I again requested this on her behalf and was told that it was in hand, but in fact, they did nothing. The children are discouraged from having contact with home and when they do get a call are given little privacy, even on their own mobiles! They take all kids mobiles away on arrival at camp and say they can have them back for 2 hours a day mon-thurs, this turned out to be, in our daughters case, for approx 15 mins a day. All in all a very bad experience for the whole family, I would advise to give it a miss!

Summary: nice front gates but more like prison than holiday camp